You could rule
by MinaOfRen
Summary: She stands there, glorious. He feels the blood pounding on his head, running wildly through his veins. Red. Furious red as her lightsaber. Behind him, Palpatine snickers. "This is what you wanted." Kylo remains silent. "What you could have."


She stands there, glorious. He feels the blood pounding on his ears, running wildly through his veins. Red. Furious red as her lightsaber.

Behind him, Palpatine snickers.

"This is what you wanted." Kylo remains silent. "What you could _have._"

It's a tempting offer, if Kylo has ever heard one. He can feel distant voices, warning and pleading him to _ignore _this treacherous voice. Greater men, stronger men have fallen for its deception. The voices are drowned by the sound of his own greed, by his _desire_.

He feels more alive than ever.

"Serve me," Darth Sidious speaks. "Serve me well and she shall be your reward."

His throat dries. "She doesn't want this."

He wants her as an equal. Rey is stronger than him, he thinks. Right now, she looks stronger.

"Young Rey doesn't know what she wants," the monster laments. "She wants a family, a place to belong, a doomed order…"

Clarity shines on his mind for a second, almost light. "You doomed them." He declares, before the darkness wraps its fingers around his neck, gently. It's almost a caress.

"They doomed themselves," he sneers uglily. But soon, the calmness returns to him. "You don't have to fall into oblivion too, young Skywalker."

There's none of Snoke's mockery in his words. There's reverence for his name, what it means and its history. The legacy that has weighted on his back since he was a child.

"I don't," Kylo concedes. His eyes never leave Rey, who stares back at him with the determination that has kept her alive since she was a child.

"You don't," she purrs at him. Her eyes are amber, he fails to notice. There's something odd, he does sense. She's dressed in black robes, holding a double-ended lightsaber. He has seen that before, in Sith Holocrons. A deep, buried part of him wishes to tease her about her un-Jedi like behavior. But Ben Solo doesn't belong in here.

"We could rule together Kylo." She offers earnestly. The words are familiar. Said a dozen times by different people. Kylo himself was one. But he might be foolish, but he is not a fool.

"You would never let us rule," he knows. So much blood has been spilled for the throne, Palpatine won't hand it over to them so kindly. Smoke wouldn't have.

"I'm not the wretched creature that haunted your childhood," he says smoothly. "If you wish the throne, you shall have it. It's already yours, by conquest and birthright."

Birthright. _Skywalker_.

"But you wish me to serve you," he musters.

"I wish you to serve the dark side, like I do. Like your grandfather did once." Kylo swallows. Rey doesn't serve the dark side. She's light, she's pure. She is _good. _So unlike him, she rejected all when she had nothing.

"Rey," he says. Her name is a prayer, a weak attempt to save them both. If she says the words, he'll attack. He killed one master for her, what is one more? "You would rule by my side?"

_Would you want me to lay the galaxy at your feet, so you can step on it or rule it as you wish?_

_Do you want me to kill this man, this monster of the darkness?_

"Yes," she whispers. The amber fades just enough so he can know it is genuine, but her eyes remain dark. Her hood falls back, leaving her hair to flow freely. She doesn't look like a Jedi, he thinks. "You know I would."

Does he?

Not for the first time, Kylo wonders what had turned her at last. It hadn't been him and a familiar bitterness invades him. He is jealous of this creature who could rot even the purest heart.

Kylo had never rotted completely. The wound on his soul had festered and made him ill, but it hadn't killed the light in him. He is not certain if he wishes it had.

The creature steps forward, to stand by Rey's side. He extends his hands in an almost fatherly gesture.

"Come with us and none will scorn you ever again." He recalls the whispers on his back, about how sanity is abandoning the new Supreme Leader. The more he silenced those voices, the more they multiplied.

"Your enemies are mine." Rey declares, bold. "I'll stand for you, just like you stood for me."

In his head, he could picture Snoke's body, cut in two and discarded. General Hux who disrespects him and hunts her down like an animal.

_Luke_, the fallen hero. The useless teacher.

He doesn't have it in himself to gloat about their fates. The two prized apprentices, now acolytes of the darkness.

They share enemies and a secret bond. Now, they share the same fate.

"Yes," he whispers. The voices are muffled, silenced. He can hear a woman cry, a man shaking his head in disappointment –at himself or Kylo, he can not tell- a young man, desperately seeing the tragedy unfold. Guilt. Fear.

Kylo remembers his father's face. But the memory is blurry, it doesn't even feel real. It cuts him anyway.

"Let's go." He commands. Palpatine smiles and Rey's lightsaber goes off. Her fingers are cold against his burning ones when they hold hands. It's an eerie coolness. She lays her head in the crook of his neck and exhales tiredly against him. This is real.

"You'll never be alone again." He promises suddenly. Kylo is not sure of why the words leave his mouth, but he feels them true as life itself.

"I know," she whispers back. "I know." She runs her fingers through his hair, then through the length of his back. Despite their coldness, they leave a warm trail behind them. Kylo shudders against her.

He had forgotten what it was like, to be touched by others.

Palpatine is gone. Where, Kylo doesn't know. To the ship, very likely.

He allows himself to touch her back, to run his hands through her hardened body.

He has doomed the galaxy for this.

_Let them burn_, he thinks.


End file.
